"High on a hill lived...

...Lady and Mr Librarian, Lay-ee ode-lay-ee ode-lay hee-hoooooooo"

I'm sure that's what Julie Andrews meant to sing. We seem to attract hills. Every house we've ever lived in together has been right at the top or right at the bottom of a steep old hill, meaning that at least once a day at we've had to walk up the blasted thing.

We're moving to Norwich, and Norfolk is a county that is known for being flat. On the way there you can see for miles and miles across endless fields and huge big skies. And yet we've still managed to find a house on top of a hill. When we went to view it the first time, I thought I was going to die walking up the damn thing (I was very hungover, we had to stop halfway up). The second time, a lady in the street smiled at us and said "it's much better going down" or some other such pleasantry. This time I nearly did die - of shock. I wanted to shout after her "we live in London, please don''t speak to us in the street unless you're going to mug us. It confuses us".

Anyway, it's worth the trek to the top of the hill, we have the most amazing view of the cathedral, city and miles and miles around. And even better than that - we will be living in a house (a house!) with three bedrooms (three!) and a downstairs loo (like the Queen!). It's a good job we've got the downstairs loo, I'm not sure I'll be able to make it up the stairs after tackling that hill...

Tickets please!

Do you know who I won't miss when we leave London? The miserable man who works in the ticket office at our local station, that's who. Heaven forbid that man should actually speak to you, he has now added throwing your change at you to his repertoire. He doesn't do it quite so well as he does reading his paper and ignoring you - he dropped 5p of my change on the floor as he was hurling it towards me, amature - but I'm sure with all the practice he'll be getting, he'll have it perfected soon.

Leaving London. Part Two.

The last time we left London we went on an 8 month round the world trip. Vowing never to set foot in the Big Smoke again, after the final flight home we lasted two months with my parents before we panicked that our friends would forget us, and we came back. Three years later, we are older, wiser (we now know that our friends will visit us. Promise them fresh air and cake and these people will do anything) and moving the hell out again.

I have a new, fantastic job, working for the brand spanking new University Campus Suffolk and we're going to be living in Norwich (insert Alan Partridge joke here). Both Mr L and I are super excited, and despite my pleas for him not to pack everything up just yet, I came home tonight to a half empty kitchen. I have no idea where our coffee machine is, but I suspect it's in a box somewhere...

So, seven weeks today I will be closing my present library up for the last time. I'll be very sad to leave my job, after a rough-ish start I've grown to really love the library, my colleagues and the library members. Even the consultant who has more questions than the Spanish Inquisition. And after I've locked up the library, I'll head into town to the Knight's Templar where we held our last farewell, and as I'm downing my pitchers of Long Island Iced Tea (thanks Booky B) I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that this time we can stay away for good.

Or at least until December 12th when I see the Manics in Brixton.

Parklife

One of the worst things about living in London is the lack of your own garden, or any outside space. My mum spent the first two years of us living here in an almost constant attempt to buy us a tumble dryer, as the lack of outside drying space for our wet clotehes was giving her sleepless nights. Never mind the fact that our flat at this time was so small a tumble dryer would have taken up the entire kitchen space...

But the lack of garden really comes into it's own when the sun comes out, and you have to walk for thirty minutes to the local park, just to be able to sit outside. I did this on Saturday whilst Mr L had a trip to the library (the closed library. By the way, library, putting the fact that you are closed on a Saturday on your website the follwoing Monday doesn't really count as advanced notice, does it?).

I lasted about an hour and a half in the park, before the general public drove me away. I'd taken my radio, and the batteries died, so all I had to listen to was the Gatwick flight path and other people's conversations. The park was pretty empty, and yet a family still managed to come and sit right by me, in all that empty space....Anyway, the little girl of the family had the same name as me. Now, my name isn't that popular, so when I hear it called, my ears always prick up. And to my credit, I sat through "Abby: "sit down", "don't do that", "come here", "would you like a cheese sandwich?", "would you like a chicken wing?", "would you like a ham sandwich?". Listen Park Mum, all that your poor Abby wanted was a bit of peace and quiet.

The final straw came when looking round the park (in a rare moment of non-Abby bossing) Park Mum declared in a very loud voice "Ah! This must be what people did before television was invented!".

I was home in thirty minutes flat.

Black umbrella, Navy baseball cap, Hard-back A4 lined notebook

Surgical technique A4 booklet (nail PTN system)
Blue envelope file containing printed documents
Hard-back A4 book ‘HGV Man Manual’
Banner shorthand notebook
BMT Careers A4 notepad
Paper-back book ‘The Practical House Officer’
A black and white grey dotted tie
A pair of sunglasses
A green book mark
A small blue ring note book
A CD ‘Kings College London Risk assessment and management of violence…’
Pressure Area Management Guide (leaflet)
Pressure Ulcer Classification (Information sheet and activity sheet)
Booklet titled ‘A Guide to Wound Dressing’
Booklet titled ‘Grey Matter’
Phone chip
BVNA key ring
Ring with a red flower on the front
Pink comb
Cream hairclip
Vesicare post-it pad
Blank patient info table with sticky labels
A4 notice ‘Changes to Recruitment’
Gold USB stick
CD
Grey hooded zip-up tracksuit top
Cream and brown subtle patterned scarf
Burgundy glasses case
Brown glasses case containing a small blue biro pen
A4 ring bound ruled plastic-backed notebook
Dutch to English dictionary
Double aerial device
Brown-green baseball cap
Dark grey printed ladies umbrella
One pair of black woollen gloves
One pair of navy woollen gloves
TV hits magazine
Pink novelty plastic backed notebook
Lilac ring-bound ruled notebook
Parts of the printout of an essay
Blue Nokia phone
Grey 2007 A5 diary
Green H+M jacket.

This is what we have in our lost property box in the library. And no, I have no idea why somebody would bring, and then leave, a tv ariel in the library.

I don't even know where to start on this one

The "logo" for the 2012 Olympics.

Make it go away!

You Love Us

Last night I went to see the Manics. A. Mazing. That's what they were. We were super close to the front and somehow I managed to end up standing behind a girl the same height as me, so I could see! I kept forgetting that I could actually see the stage and found myself standing in my usual gig position, where I look roughly 10ft above the band as that's all I can see. I had a lovely unobstructed view of James, as usual all I could see of Sean was his arms, and I was probably a bit too close to Nicky, got to see a fair amount of his undies once he donned his super short mini skirt.

What I have never, and will never get, are people who go to gigs to talk through the band. Tickets weren't cheap for last nights gig, so why would you fork out £26 and then just chat, in a LOUD voice all the way through it? Why?! Surely it's cheaper to stay at home, or go to the pub? What made this even more annoying was at the beginning of every song they said, loudly, something along the lines of "I f'ing LOVE this song" or, in the case of an acoustic number "this song is just beautiful" and then chatted away merrily all the way through it. I did say to them at one point, after an "I f'ing LOVE this song" "well why don't you shut the f up then?" but they were so busy talking they didn't hear me!

Wheels on fire

This morning my bus driver (well, the driver of the bus I was going to work on, I don't have my own personal bus) stopped to help a man put out his car that was on fire, whilst the rest of the bus tutted, sighed in an exaggerated fashion and swore at being held up for literally 3 minutes on their journey, and the other car drivers drove straight past him without a second glance.

There is nothing miserable Londoners hate more than someone getting in their way, especially with such trivial things as car fires. This man's car was actually on fire, and people were more concerned with the fact that they might be a few milliseconds late for work.

What people don't realise is that on the side of the building that says "Welcome to London" is that underneath in teeny letters it says "Please leave all manners and consideration for others this side of the North Circular".

Don't tell my mum

but yesterday I met up with a bloke I met on the internet. Luckily, he turned out to be a very nice man indeed and didn't kidnap or murder me, hooray! Even better than not being kidnapped or murdered was finally getting my hands on a pair of tickets for the Manics.

I found him through www.scarletmist.com after having been messed around, again, by See Tickets. In the past year they have charged me for Recorded Delivery (more or less £5) and sent the tickets by First Class Post (32p), I've had to phone them up to tell them a gig was cancelled and ask for my money back - they had no idea and this time they sent me a sale confirmation email only to follow it up 6 hours later with an email to say that there were 'not enough funds' in my account so they'd cancelled my order. Fibbers. Funny that the money they couldn't take on Thursday came flying out of the cash machine yesterday to pay the Lovely Internet Man. Hmm.

The lost art of customer service

I’ve spent the best part of the afternoon trying to set up electronic access to one of our journals, I won’t bore you with the painfully long process I had to go through to actually get it, but here’s the last reply I got:

"You can furnish me with a password and I can enter it in."

What?! That’s not even bloody English. If they weren’t on the wrong side of the Atlantic I’d be furnishing them with more than a bloody password.

Our Man on a spending spree?

Do a good thing today. Be entertained and get the itchiest feet you've ever had. Go here, read it, and before you pack your bags for and head for the nearest airport, leave a comment and vote for Our Man and make him a Rich Man. $500 to the winner.

Update! He won, hooray! The full weeks guest blogging can be found here.

O.A.L. Old Age Librarian

So, I'm now officially the wrong side of 29. On Sunday afternoon my best friend phoned me to ask "are you suicidal yet?", and I was little unhappy in a "what have I done with my life" way. Luckily by the time I woke up on Monday, the mood had passed and I had a lovely day. It was super sunny, so, as befits a librarian of my age, Mr L & I took a stroll around the local park (where I saw an obscene amount of duck sex. Ducks! Get a room!) and then went for lunch.

As we were waiting for our food, the couple at the table next to us were just leaving. The lady rose from her chair accompanied by the "oofs" and "ooohs" that accompany us over 30s every time we do anything more strenuous than drinking a cup of tea. When she'd got to her feet, she turned to us and said "You never think you're going to get old. I don't think I'm much longer for this world". What are you supposed to say to that?

And is this what you get when you reach your thirties, no more strippers* for your birthday just a Pensioner-o-Gram who comes to tell you of the 'joys' ahead of you?

*Although I've never been sent a stripper. And that's they way I like it, thanks.

The dog ate my homework

Ooooh, you'll never guess what happened! Well, there I was flying back to LA from Sydney when the plane only went and crashed! No? Yes! So then, I was all stranded on this island with these other damn annoying people and would you believe it - in this weird underground house thing, there was a computer! "Great" I thought, and there I was all set to update my blog but apparantly someone blogging about 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 was more important and so it's been three months since I last wrote here.

Oh, alright. I have not been living in Lost since December (not even the faux England bit where Charlie lives). I'm just lazy.

Here are ten things that have happened since I last blogged.

1. I got a whole lot closer to 30. Boo!
2. I booked a holiday with my best friend in Tunisia - we are off on April 1st to drink for a week in the sun and forget all about the fact that we are both 30. I booked it All Inclusive and she doesn't know. The reason I decided to book All Inclusive wasn't down to the unlimited booze, or use of pedalos, but the fact that you get Afternoon Tea and Biscuits every day. Rock.
3. I gave 20p to a woman with no change who needed to use the loo at Charing Cross Station. This means that I have repaid the 20p a lady gave to me almost two years ago when I was desperate at Victoria Station and had no change. I had been waiting all that time for someone to help. Karma.
4. The library was broken into and some hoodlum stole 12 computers. Double boo!
5. I signed up for a librarians conference in April 'cus Miss S is going too, only to be told by a publishers rep I know that the kind of people that go to this conference are "hardcore drinkers" and "party until 5am". There is a disco every night. Both Miss S and I will be taking cameras, I think this has to be seen to be believed.
6. I attended a course at my old university and saw one of my old tutors. She didn't recognise me as the drunken idiot who stood on her handbag in the pub at the christmas 'do'.
7. I had my hair cut and immediately wished I hadn't.
8. I realised that I really like singing along to songs that have the word "goddamn" in them.
9. I went to the theatre in Manchester and a man was sick on me during the interval. This is what happens when you attend a cultural event in the north of this country.
10. I got a even closer to 30. Boo!

So see, apart from the burlgary and vomiting incidences, you didn't really miss much, did you?